Calendar

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Aug
7
Tue
End Forced Arbitraton – Lobby Day in Sacramento
Aug 7 all-day

Let’s make change! On Tuesday August 7th, join us restaurant workers from around California in Sacramento, for a push to end forced arbitration as a condition of employment!

Forced arbitration means that any complaint against an employer must be resolved through a private mediator (often hired by the employer) rather than through the public court system system! Employees must waive their right to sue, to participate in a class action lawsuit, or to appeal! Workers should not have to waive their rights to find work!

On August 7th, we will tell our stories to our representatives and demand that they protect our rights, by saying no to forced arbitration agreements!

If you are able to join us and/or have a story to share, please contact us! We will be picking up folks from 6AM-7AM from BART stations around Oakland (Ashby, Coliseum, Downtown, and MacArthur). Please send us a private message if interested and bring your friends! You can also caravan with us in your own vehicle and meet us at the State Capitol at 9AM.

This will be an all-day event; food, transportation, childcare and a great community will all be provided.

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Demand Alameda County Sheriff Accountability Mobilization @ County Building, across the street from the Courthouse
Aug 7 @ 9:30 am – 12:00 pm

Because since 2004 the Alameda County jail population has decreased by half, yet the sheriff’s budget has since increased by 105%.

Because in the past 5 years 33 people have died while in jail custody.

Because in June, two men died in the span of just three days, both while in custody in the Santa Rita Jail.

August 7th is the last board meeting before the County Supervisors go on recess — let’s show up to demand that our elected officials do their job and hold the Sheriff accountable by allowing for a strong independent audit.

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights | www.ellabakercenter.org | 510.428.3939

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Demand Justice for Jessica St. Louis
Aug 7 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

On July 28, 2018, Jessica St. Louis was released from Santa Rita Jail at 1:25am. She was given a BART ticket and sent on her way to walk the 1.9 miles from Santa Rita Jail to Dublin/Pleasanton BART. By 5:25am she was found at the station unresponsive and declared dead. This should never have happened. The practice of late night and early morning releases must stop!

Come join us to honor Jessica’s life and demand an end to late night and early morning release.

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Aug
9
Thu
No DAC for BART: BART Proposes Facial Recognition Surveillance Dragnet @ BART Boardroom, 20th Street Mall, Third Floor
Aug 9 @ 9:00 am – 12:00 pm

Enter to the left of the CVS.

On Thursday, BART police will propose a system-wide security dragnet for the Bay Area’s transit system. BART police are asking the board to approve the project in concept and authorize trials at Lake Merritt and Civic Center BART stations.

No privacy policy. No civil rights impact assessment. No data storage and access rules. No biased and inaccurate facial recognition for BART,

We need a strong public showing on Thursday morning to tell BART that this will not stand.

BART is planning to use the same platform that was proposed as the “brains” of the Domain Awareness Center (PSIM). The plan calls for 2000 CCTV cameras to be converted to IP-based for geospatial tagging and advanced real-time video analytics, likely facial recognition technologies already proven to be inaccurate and biased.

BART has sat on its hands and delayed the adoption of a surveillance technology ordinance approved by its tech commiitee in 2016. Now BART Police are attempting to rush through an aggressive new surveillance network with only 72 hours notice.

The Bay Area has rejected wall to wall surveillance every time it has reared its head.

There are plenty of common sense things BART could do with $15-25 million dollars to improve security on the transit system without treating every passenger like a criminal suspect.

The last thing Nia Wilson would want is her death used to increase the high-tech harassment of Black and Brown people.

BART is a subway, not a perpetual lineup.

We need you to come speak up.

Tweet at hashtag #NODACFORBART

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Art Build for Rise for Climate, Jobs & Justice & Networking Potluck @ Please RSVP for full directions to event
Aug 9 @ 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Art Build for Rise for Climate, Jobs & Justice & Networking Potluck

Fossil Free California is getting ready to RISE for CLIMATE, JOBS & JUSTICE at the San Francisco march on September 8 with partners and allies from around the world.

The main march on September 8 in San Francisco will be the largest climate action on the West Coast in history!

On August 9, please join us to make signs and banners for RISE and other actions. The art build will run from 4pm to 6pm. At 6pm, we will take a break, enjoy a potluck feast, and share updates on our campaigns.

Please RSVP to reserve your space. See you then!

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DSA: West Oakland Neighborhood Social @ Ghost Town Brewing
Aug 9 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Comrades! Are you excited about housing justice, connecting with neighbors, and building real people-power in West Oakland? Come have a beer, meet organizers in your neighborhood, and learn about the work East Bay DSA is doing to fight for housing justice in West Oakland!

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Aug
10
Fri
Stand with Communities, Not Corporations! Mass action Against Climate Change Profiteers @ Park 55 Hotel
Aug 10 @ 8:00 am – 11:00 am

Protect Mother Earth. End Climate Capitalism. Support Community Solutions.
San Francisco, CA.  Sept 10th and 13th, 2018

The twin crises of capitalism and climate change are destroying the planet, burning our homes, and flooding our communities. We are witnessing unprecedented harm, from the hurricanes that ravaged Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and the Gulf Coast, to wildfires destroying communities along the west coast. At the same time, California passed climate laws (AB 398) that subsidize, and allow the world’s largest corporations to continue destroying our climate and communities with pollution and poverty

In September, Governor Jerry Brown is convening the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) in San Francisco to promote his “real climate leadership” credentials on a global stage. But Jerry Brown’s promotion of carbon trading markets and other perverse subsidies to oil, gas and other polluting corporations only perpetuates climate change, and decimates Indigenous communities and Native nations, communities of color and other working class peoples throughout California and around the world.

Such incentives for “climate capitalism” will turn frontline communities into sacrifice zones for decades to come, and despite Brown’s attempts to prove he is different from Trump and the dark forces of climate denial, his “climate leadership” promotes the same corporate agenda – aimed at expanding the dig, burn, drive, dump industries destroying our communities and the air, land and water we depend on.

Join us to stand in solidarity with frontline communities protecting Mother Earth, and cultivating real solutions to the twin crises of climate change and capitalism. Join us to demand that elected leaders stand with our communities on the streets, and not the climate profiteers gathered inside.

On September 10th, join us in a mass non-violence action at one of the locations where climate profiteers will meet prior to the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS).

On September 13th, join us in a mass non-violence action at the doors of GCAS.

 We invite all leaders who are marketing and trading our futures, to return all stolen wealth and resources, and reinvest in frontline communities organizing a Just Transition to local, living economies guided by the earth’s natural cycles and the needs of all peoples, not the profits of a few. Join us to challenge an economic agenda that also militarizes our lands, gentrifies and displaces our communities, wages gendered and racialized violence against our peoples, incarcerates our youth, and exploits and enslaves our natural and human resources to further concentrate profits and power.

Our actions will be wrapped in prayer and committed with love for all we hold dear. Our actions will embody visionary and beautiful solutions cultivated by our communities whose deep roots are bound in protecting the fragile balance between Mother Earth & Father Sky.

We call for all peoples around the world to join us on the streets of San Francisco as we tell Jerry Brown and his friends that “real climate leaders” stand with people, not the pollution profiteers.

Join us on September 10th and 13th to Protect Mother Earth, End Climate Capitalism and Support Community-led Solutions for the health and wellbeing of all life.

Find out more at www.riseagainstclimatecapitalism.org

Idle No More SF Bay, Diablo Rising Tide, the Ruckus Society, It Takes Roots and Indigenous Environmental Network

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Aug
11
Sat
Knock Doors for Housing Justice & Yes on Prop 10 in West Oakland
Aug 11 @ 11:00 am – 3:00 pm

The housing crisis in the Bay Area and beyond is a wholly preventable disaster, created and maintained by the notion that housing is a commodity and not a human right.

On Saturday, August 11, join us in the campaign for the Yes on Prop 10, also called the Affordable Housing Act, a ballot initiative that that will give our cities and counties the power to adopt rent control necessary to address the state’s housing affordability crisis by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act upholds landlord interests, and — in tandem with the housing crisis — has deeply exacerbated social disparities, displaced longtime communities, driven homelessness, and dealt a blow to working-class power by making housing ever more insecure and inaccessible.

Come learn more about Prop 10 and repealing Costa-Hawkins, and then we’ll hit the streets to talk with our neighbors about housing justice and the Affordable Housing Act!

We will be meeting within McClymonds Mini-Park. Look for the big DSA flag!

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Aug
12
Sun
Protest at Richmond Jail / Bay Area ICE Detention @ West County Detention Facility
Aug 12 @ 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

MASS RESISTANCE TO MASS INCARCERATION IS GROWING! Please join your voice and stand together against he horrors of family separation, racist policing and imprisonment, and criminalization of immigrants this Sunday August 12th (11am-Noon) and demand WCDF and demand “Let Our People Go!” Please read details on parking and location below.

Sheriff Livingston announced an end to WCDF contract with ICE, in part due to growing protests. Immigrant detainees are in peril of being sent to private prisons in other states, and the sheriff will likely fill the ICE budget hole by increasing the general population at WCDF. Never forget, most of the people incarcerated there are interned only because they cannot post bail.

Livingston also blocked off the entire jail property and declared no protests are allowed and threatened anyone who steps on the property without “official business” will be arrested. This is a clear violation of first amendment rights. We won’t allow the Sheriff’s blatant disregard of free speech stop us from protesting the immorality of mass incarceration and inhumane treatment of general population and immigrant detainees.

Stand with our monthly multi-face action to demand that immigrant detainees be released, not transferred, hear about community bail funds and demand an end to the racist poverty imprisonment policies. We will gather and protest across the street (read on for details).

Across the country, the situation is dire. Kidnapped migrant children are being interned alone, the regime is rapidly building internment camps—some on toxic sites—where they plan indefinite internment of immigrant families. We have to end the normalization of millions of people separated from their families in the course of racist mass incarceration policies throughout the US.

This Sunday, August 12th from 11am-Noon across the street from WCDF at 1111 Giant Highway Richmond we will:

• HEAR Samba band Sistah Boom
• Patricia Contreras Flores, healer and writer, from ACUDIR Alameda County United in Defense of Immigrant Rights who will share an indigenous perspective with prayer, updates from dispatching the ACILEP hotline and song
• GET UPDATES from families whose loved ones are imprisoned at WCDF
• WRITE letters to individuals detained by ICE
• CREATE at the children’s art table
• SHOUT & MAKE NOISE so people inside can hear they are not forgotten

MUST READ: Parking & Location Info
1. There is no longer access to parking or entry at WCDF (Google Map is HERE). There are two choices for parking: the first is anywhere possible on the sides of Great Highway, and the second is to pay $3 at the Point Pinole parking lot that is located immediately south of WCDF.

2. The only bathrooms for public to use are located in the Point Pinole parking lot. We can no longer use the jail bathrooms.

3. We will have signs and volunteers indicating the flattest place to enter the field area to guide people to the field next to the large eucalyptus trees across from WCDF.

4. Some of the scrubby plants in the field are prickly. But it is not paved and therefore not easily accessible. We suggest closed shoes and longer pants to avoid prickly plants.

5. The sheriff’s “no entry” policy is unfair, we think illegal, and especially challenging to people with limited mobility. Last Saturday, a small group of people in wheelchairs and in camping chairs clustered with signs by the entrance barricaded by patrol cars, people with mobility challenges may choose this option again and there will be helpers to offer support for folks with mobility challenges reach the prostest on the field.

LET OUR PEOPLE GO protests are held on the 2nd Sunday of every month at 11am, to oppose the immorality of mass incarceration and deportations with activist debriefs, music, art, stories, poetry, interactive small groups and more. We demonstrate at West County Detention Facility in Richmond, which holds both county jail and Bay Area ICE detainees. We stand/sit outside the front entrance, adjacent to both public parking and the visitors’ waiting room, which has public bathrooms, making this an accessible action.

Let Our People Go was initiated by members of Kehilla Community Synagogue’s Immigration Committee, modeled in part on the 1st Saturday vigils held by our partners at Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. A grassroots effort, Let Our People Go protests are organized ongoing by a few volunteers from Kehilla’s Immigration Committee, Congregation Beth El and Solidarity Sundays. The participation of a multitude of organizations, artists and regular attendees creates a powerful community circle to send a sustained message of resistance. **If your school, network, affinity group or congregation is interested in getting involved, contact us at letourpeoplego@kehillasynagogue.org.**

This one-hour Sunday morning protest is one way that Bay Area residents—especially those who currently enjoy the privileges of citizenship—can shine a spotlight on this immoral site of internment right in the East Bay. It’s our responsibility to fight the right wing’s racist, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, ableist, transphobic, homophobic, misogynist ramp up of authoritarian policing, incarceration, and deportation practices—if not now, when?

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Medicare for All National Weekend of Action – DSA Canvass @ Bushrod Park
Aug 12 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Join East Bay DSA for the second-ever Medicare for All National Weekend of Action! DSA has been at the forefront of the fight to guarantee healthcare as a human right, and our weekends of action are exciting opportunities to flex the collective power of DSA’s national membership towards winning Medicare for All—a much needed piece of democratic socialism for the American working class.

East Bay DSA will join dozens of DSA chapters from coast to coast to build the movement for Medicare for All. Join us in Bushrod Park on August 12 from noon — 4:00 p.m. for a Medicare for All Rally and canvass with Jovanka Beckles, a DSA member and candidate for State Assembly in AD-15. Jovanka has been a champion for a single-payer Medicare for All system in California, and after the rally, we’ll head out into the neighborhood to knock doors for Jovanka and Proposition 10, the Affordable Housing Act.

Medicare for All is benefiting from unprecedented popularity, but in order to get our politicians to buck their billionaire donors and side with the majority, we have to threaten them with a mass political movement. Join us on August 12 to build the movement to win Medicare for All and to support our electoral campaigns for Jovanka Beckles and the Affordable Housing Act!

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Green Sunday: Child Internment Camps in the American Refugee Crisis @ Niebyl Proctor Library
Aug 12 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

 

Our presentation looks at the practice of separating children from their parents – a United States policy designed to be a deterrrent to refugees, many of them from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, who have been forced to immigrate and seek asylum at the southern border. Ten thousand children ripped away from their parents are currently in internment camps – a situation far more than cruel and unusual, but indispuutably evil because this brutal traumatization of children is unnecessary.  To help us look into the abyss and understand what we are seeing, we have four activists this evening to inform us.

Karma Bennet is a Marketing Content Strategist who runs an Oakland company to help creative people publicize their books and build websites. She was arrested for her participation in the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation campaign and she protested at George Bush’s stolen election, the G8, the World Bank and the School of the Americas.

Liz DeCou is a nurse and grandmother affiliated with Solidaridad Con los Niños.  She was arrested for trespassing at a detention center in Fairfield when trying to deliver a doll to immigrant kids separated by ICE from their parents. Her arrest got over a million views on Twitter.

Jesse Smith is an Oakland community organizer and an activist focused on police corruption.  As a practitioner of civil disobedience, he recently joined with a California human rights group to engage an internment camp at the southern border.

Nohelya Zambrano is an Ecuador-born, New York City-raised Latina student from Mount Holyoke College who is interning this summer in the Bay Area. She is a proud immigrant who fights for immigrant and reproductive justice.

64966
25th Birthday Party for Long Haul Infoshop @ Longhaul
Aug 12 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

The Long Haul Infoshop opened August 13, 1993

Come celebrate 25 years!
— free t-shirt raffle
— silk screen your own t-shirt – bring a blank shirt
— vegan chocolate cake / celebratory food items
— tell funny stories

The Infoshop is accepting donations on its website and otherwise to continue for another 25 years.

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Aug
14
Tue
ELLA BAKER CENTER LOBBY DAY @ State Capitol
Aug 14 @ 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Ella Baker Center members, staff, and allies will be traveling to Sacramento to advance our policy agenda. We will focus on lobbying for the Fair & Just Sentencing Reform Act (SB 1393) and other criminal justice reform bills. Transportation and food will be provided.

RSVP required. Please RSVP here.

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Intro to SURJ Meeting @ Movement Strategy Center
Aug 14 @ 6:45 pm – 9:00 pm

Want to get involved with SURJ Bay Area? Come learn about our current work and activities. SURJ moves white people to act for justice, with passion and accountability, as part of a multi-racial majority.

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Habeas Data: Author Tour @ Octopus Literary Salon
Aug 14 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
On behalf of the Northern CA chapter of Society of Professional Journalists – a book reading for Cyrus Farivar, author of the newly released Habeas Data.

Habeas Data shows how the explosive growth of surveillance technology has outpaced our understanding of the ethics, mores, and laws of privacy.

Award-winning tech reporter Cyrus Farivar makes the case by taking ten historic court decisions that defined our privacy rights and matching them against the capabilities of modern technology. It’s an approach that combines the charge of a legal thriller with the shock of the daily headlines.

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Aug
16
Thu
Screening of ‘Zero Weeks’ @ South Berkeley Senior Center
Aug 16 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

A film examining paid family leave. The film and panel that follows highlight the state and national movement for Paid Family Leave.

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Aug
19
Sun
Candlelight Vigil & Walk for Jessica St. Louis @ Santa Rita Jail
Aug 19 @ 9:00 pm – 10:30 pm

On July 28, 2018, Jessica St. Louis was released from Santa Rita Jail in the middle of the night at 1:25a. Like so many other people released from Santa Rita, she had to walk the 1.9 miles to Dublin BART. She would be found outside, unresponsive and declared dead before the station opened at 5:30a.

We are demanding an end to late night releases.

Please join us as we take the long, dark and desolate walk Jessica and so many other women and men take to get home after incarceration.
Along the way, we will hear the stories of other women who encountered traffickers, were sexually harassed, and braved the cold after release from Santa Rita Jail.

We will have a number of cars shuttling people from Dublin BART to Santa Rita. Those with disabilities will join our walk via caravan.

#SayHerName
#JusticeForJessica
#ProtectOurSisters
#EndLateNightReleases

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Aug
20
Mon
SIT IN to Demand Brown STAND UP to Big Oil @ State Capitol
Aug 20 all-day

Join a non-violent direct action in Sacramento to insist that Governor Jerry Brown ban fracking and neighborhood drilling to protect our communities.

Californians have delivered well over 1 million petitions to Governor Brown calling on him to stand up to the oil industry, and held many rallies and press conferences. Health forums have explained the toxic effects of extreme oil and neighborhood drilling. Brown has received consistent reminders that the majority of Californians and the science DO NOT support fracking and neighborhood drilling.

Brown has never acknowledged these demands. Instead, he has cultivated close ties to big oil, taken money from industry, and cut oil industry-friendly deals around critical policies and regulations, while people continue to be exposed to known carcinogens in their own homes and as drilling expands.

Governor Jerry Brown wants to be remembered as a climate leader, but the reality is that he has already failed the test of real leadership. August 20 Californians will travel to Sacrament to take non-violent direct action to declare a day of reckoning and demand that Governor Brown stand up to big oil. They will insist that Brown

  • stop issuing new permits for oil drilling in California
  • commit our state to a managed decline of fossil fuel production
  • beginning with 2,500 ft setback limits to protect frontline communities from toxic oil and gas drilling
  • as part of a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels.

For more information, visit: https://brownsreckoning.org/  

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LGBTQ Prisoner Letterwriting and Mail Processing @ Farley's East
Aug 20 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Join us for this important way to show solidarity with our incarcerated LGBTQ+ and HIV+ community members! Every month on the 3rd Monday, we’ll have mail processing/data entry, birthday cards to our LGBTQ members in nearby Norcal prisons AND penpal info, so join us for whatever your pleasure is (and invite your friends)!

Please join with or without a laptop – there is work for everyone! If you’d like, we’ll train you to respond to letters or to enter and update penpal request forms in our database. Getting these forms into our database helps get our inside folks matched to penpals, so this is an essential part of our work (and we have so much mail!).

If you want to start a penpal relationship, we will also have info on folks to send letters to, all the supplies, and ways to get more involved in the movement to abolish prisons. Letterwriting is one incredible way we have to overcome the isolation intended by the PIC.

Some food and beverages are available for purchase from the cafe. And please bring some dollars and change toward postage, if you can. Any money raised beyond the cost of supplies will be used to support both local & national Black & Pink projects.

Wheelchair accessible, though outlets for laptops are on the 2nd floor only.

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Aug
21
Tue
Prisoner Hunger Strike and Ashker Solitary Confinement Settlement Rally
Aug 21 @ 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

RALLY at the San Francisco Federal Courthouse while the four CA Prisoner Hunger Strike and Ashker Class Representatives ‘Meet and Confer’ with CDCr to address the continuing solitary conditions that violate the Ashker lawsuit settlement agreement. The four prisoner hunger strike representatives will be present in the courtroom, an historic presence!

Help create a strong show of solidarity with prisoners fighting for human rights!

What’s going on? The prisoner class-led movement and the Ashker class action lawsuit resulted in the release of over 1400 people from solitary confinement Security Housing Units (SHUs) to what the CA Department of Corrections (CDCr) calls “General Population.” However, many of those people continue to be subjected to conditions of extreme isolation. With little to no out-of-cell time and no chance for social interaction, they are still in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.

On July 3, 2018, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled:

The Settlement Agreement was intended to remove Plaintiffs from detention in the SHU, where they were isolated in a cell for 22 ½ to 24 hours a day.� many Plaintiffs [now] spend an average of less than an hourr of out-of-cell time each day, which is similar to the conditions they endured in the SHU.�  … This demonstrates a violation of the Settlement Agreement.” FULL RULING HERE

and “…a substantial percentage of Plaintiffs in Restricted Custody General Population (RCGP) are …not permitted to exercise in small group yards or engage in group leisure activities. This does not comply with the terms of the Settlement Agreement.” FULL RULING HERE

The Ashker Plaintiff class reps and legal team were ordered to meet and confer* with CDCr lawyers to explore a resolution of these two issues. The four prisoner hunger strike representatives will be inside the courtroom. Please join us outside, and bring a friend, in a strong show of solidarity.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IS TORTURE

UNITY INSIDE, UNITY OUTSIDE

IMPORTANT NOTE: August 21, 2018 is the 47 year memorial anniversary of revered prison activist, George Jackson, who was assassinated by CA guards in San Quentin prison. It is also the first day of the 2018 National Prison Strike for humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform, and the end of modern day slavery.

*Meet and confers are usually private with no judge present. This one will be in the presence of Magistrate Robert Illman and not open to the public.

prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com

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